Most affordable 5G plans for businesses

Small and medium-sized businesses in South Africa can select one of several high-capacity and uncapped fixed-5G products as their primary or backup Internet connection.

While fibre should be the go-to broadband product due to its fast speeds, low latency, and general reliability, it is not available everywhere in the country.

Several mobile networks have expanded their 5G footprints extensively over the past few years, making this technology one of the best alternatives.

A fixed-5G package can also be a good backup connection if your business’s primary product does not come with a service-level agreement (SLA) that guarantees dedicated capacity and a short turnaround period for fixing faults.

This would be relevant to small businesses located in predominantly residential areas that don’t have dedicated fixed business products.

While a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connection may be more than sufficient for small business needs, it does not offer guarantees when there are network issues.

MyBroadband looked at the fixed-5G package available from mobile networks in South Africa.

We found that only Vodacom and Rain advertised packages specifically for businesses.

MTN Business also offers uncapped wireless broadband for businesses with speeds up to 100Mbps, but these come with a 4G router.

Telkom’s business catalogue included 5G Internet products that were identical in features and pricing to its 5G offering for homes.

The products lacked mention of any dedicated business-focused service, such as call-out teams.

Between Vodacom and Rain, the former had the cheapest prices, starting from R649 per month for a 25Mbps speed.

The package has a fair usage policy (FUP) that throttles speeds to 4Mbps after 1TB consumption and hard locks after 1.5TB.

While this might make it unsuitable as the main connection for businesses with heavy data usage, it offers good value as a backup connection.

Vodacom’s packages can be taken with an optional voice-over-IP service with two numbers on IP-Talk with 20% discounted rates.

Rain’s most affordable package was priced at R795 per month and boasted a 30Mbps download speed.

This product may be more suitable for businesses with high data demand as it does not have any usage restrictions.

It also comes bundled with five mobile 4G SIMs, each with 2GB data, 60 voice minutes, and 100 SMSs.

Black Friday offer with extra help

Vodacom also offers a technical installation option for more complex setups that require professional expertise.

Although normally priced at R100 extra per month, the company is offering a Black Friday discount on these packages until 5 December 2024.

These include discounts ranging from R150 to R400 on the 25Mbps, 50Mbps, and 100Mbps products.

The cheapest price available in the Black Friday sale was R499 for the 25Mbps package.

However, for the purposes of our comparison, we excluded limited-time promotions.

The table below compares the regular prices and features of self-installed fixed-5G business products from Vodacom and Rain.